Tonight we got a phone call letting us know that a local minister has been caught in an affair. We know this man. More specifically, we know his wife's family.
News like this fills me with a wide range of emotions, the strongest of which is anger. Thankfully, God has burdened my heart to dig below the surface in situations such as this. When I dig below the surface emotion of anger, I am deeply broken for him. Yes, he took his eyes off Christ. Yes, he allowed his selfishness and his own sinful desires to shatter the lives of people who love him. Yes, he is wrong in what he did. Still, my heart breaks for him...because there is no way he can make it right.
He can't go back in time and make different choices. He can't make his wife forget that he betrayed her...or even hope that she will ever understand his reasons for choosing to behave in a way that would obviously hurt her so terribly.
He can't make this "okay".
Not only has he hurt his family, but he has also betrayed The Lord he promised to serve. He listened to the same whispers of Satan that he told others to ignore. He fell to the same temptation he told others to resist. He committed the same sins that he warned others about. I cannot imagine the heartbreak of knowing that he willingly turned away from God and followed the enemy of our souls down this path of devastation.
What a tragic, tragic place to be.
That is exactly where we stand without Christ. Without Him, we are alone and abandoned in our sin.
Thankfully, God saw our need for a Savior. Jesus Christ gave up His life to pay our debt for sin. Then He rose from the grave, defeating death and giving us the gift of eternal life in Christ.
Therefore, we are not abandoned to our sin. We have hope in heaven through Jesus Christ.
And so does my minister friend. While his life here will be marked with the consequences of his sin, he can find hope in the promise of heaven.
No matter where you find yourself as you read this, whether you are standing alone in your sin or buried in the rubble of a life that was shattered by someone else's sin, there is hope. Thankfully, Jesus Christ provides us all hope in heaven.
My prayer is that you will embrace the hope we have in heaven and live the rest of your days to bring Glory to the One who is the source of that hope.
1 comment:
Beautifully written - thank you. These are troubling times, The enemy accuses God's children day and night. He never takes a coffee break. All of us are bombarded with temptations - but I think Christians in leadership are under great attack. Nothing but the blood of Jesus can make us clean. May each one of us hasten to His throne and keep a fixed gaze on Him until we take our last breath.
RETA@ http://evenhaazer.blogspot.com
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